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Our graphics capabilities have sort of plateaued as of late. Games and movies look better than they ever have, but we’re still embroiled in an eternal battle with the Uncanny Valley. No matter how great a video game heroine’s hair looks, or how many individual furs are articulated on an anthropomorphic Pixar character, we can still instantly tell that computer-generated graphics are just that — generated by a computer. Aside from human eyes and mouths, one of the biggest enemies of the Uncanny Valley is computer-generated water. With PhysX’s position based fluids, though, CG water flows the best we’ve ever seen.

Perhaps the closest we’ve come to mind-blowing computer-generated water effects in a consumer product is the water in the Uncharted series. The way the water flows won’t explode any brains, but how it dampens anything it touches, exactly where it touches, is nothing short of mesmerizing. For instance, whatever angle a character enters a body of water, his or her shirt and pants will become damp based on which parts of the clothing actually touched the water. While that realism is impressive, it certainly doesn’t translate to the way the water flows. However, PhysX’s position based fluids research seems to have produced computer-generated water that moves just like the real thing.

CG water that behaves similarly to real fluid has been around for a while — most notably in tech demos showing off that it’s possible, or perhaps appearing in the occasional big-budget movie. However, it’s too computationally intensive to put into a real-time application, like a video game. For as pretty as the CryEngine is, our hardware just can’t dedicate enough resources to generate fancy flowing fluids. Now, though, Nvidia’s Miles Macklin and Matthias Müller-Fischer have figured out a way to reduce the load on hardware, generating a result that is remarkably fluid, but “suitable for real-time applications.”

Position based fluids — the method used — is similar to the one that dictates the behavior of computer-generated cloth, position based dynamics. Unfortunately, the exact methods used to reduce the computational load and create lifelike water movements haven’t yet been revealed, as Macklin and Müller-Fischer are saving the details for a forthcoming research paper. What the pair did note, though, is that they were able to create surface tension, improve particle distribution, and lower the overall computational requirements to get everything working.

The “real-time applications” weren’t defined, and we’re not sure if that means consumer-grade entertainment media, or expensive and powerful systems used by professional designers. The above video is a mightily impressive tech demo either way. The water bounces and flows like it would in real life, shimmying between cracks, rolling off of curved surfaces, and adhering to inertia. Almost benevolently, the video morphs the water into little spheres, giving us something of an X-ray view of how the water moves.

Hopefully, the PhysX duo will be able to transfer the position based fluids method to next-gen consumer-grade applications, and we’ll soon be able to watch water soak a character’s shirt, but realistically bounce around between his arms and off of his torso during the process.

reltime graphics will look this good fullscreen when volta parts come out in 2016-2017. i cant wait to see games like this when realtime rendering gets to around 30 teraflops. shitz gonna be supa tight!!

maybe_later_music_dude

reltime graphics will look this good fullscreen when volta parts come out in 2016-2017. i cant wait to see games like this when realtime rendering gets to around 30 teraflops. shitz gonna be supa tight!!

VirtualMark

Yeah it should be good! I’m really underwhelmed by the next generation of consoles, PCs are already better. I kinda wish I could just hibernate for a decade and wake up when everything is awesome.

mazty

Actually Digital Foundry have a good article about it. The Wii U is a write off in terms of tech, but the PS3 has a large advantage that it already has more memory than even a Titan. In essence, you’re getting a console that currently challenges mid-high range PC’s and depending on price point, that may be a really good deal – expecting $1000 performance from a $350 console was never going to happen due to cost.

Phobos

very impressive but how does that going to translate into better gameplay?

Jamie MacDonald

Pirate sailing game. Imagine taking to the high seas like this, with a totally dynamic weather system.

http://www.facebook.com/BringingPeaceIsMyDream Piyush Mandal

Assassin Creed 4

iron_dinges

Some examples:
– In puzzle games, you could drop something heavy in the water to create a wave you can ride to reach an otherwise unreachable location.
– A laser gun that is blocked by water, so you throw grenades and such into the water to generate waves to use as shields.
– In ship-ship combat, waves would be able to capsize ships, so captains must pay attention to ship orientation.

VirtualMark

Yeah good ideas – a game like Portal would benefit from this tech.

GatzLoc

The water doesn’t look that good to me, then again I havn’t played a water game in awhile.

The pirate game in AC3 was amazing though, wish they’d release a full-fledge edition of it.

I’ll start a white house petition :P./

VirtualMark

It’s not so much about the look of the water, it’s about the way it moves and interacts with objects. It’s a step forward for realistic physics in gaming.

Basil_Nolan

Impressive! Most impressive!
The only thing that bugs me is the cohesion effect that is still absent from fluid simulation. Just improve that and I’ll be willing to take a splash in my PC.

s3ct0r

The rabbit really seems disinterested in the new technology.

martixy

Apparently that’s a thing in the graphics community.
It’s called the “Stanford Bunny”.

Just watch any random SIGGRAPH demo and you’re likely to find it.

ee mail

I wonder , if thats real fluid mechanics in action in real time .
If it does accurate calculation in real time , it has many many applications in engineering.
For instance you can simulate dam break or see effect on hydraulic machinery and watch for safety issues.
Computational Fluid mechanics is the holy grail of engineering

its like the sound barrier
and if thats broken
gosh
I wonder I am living or dead
But that was destined to happen one day.
I congratulate the team and look forward to use it for testing my hydraulic structures ASAP.

VirtualMark

I doubt it would be 100% accurate if it was for gaming, I think gaming cards have less precision than professional cards. Gaming cards usually focus on speed where pro cards focus on accuracy.

But it would be fair to assume that this technology could be made more accurate, specifically for professional cards.

I’m just guessing tho, I don’t actually know either way.

http://www.facebook.com/sermeric Serhat Meriç

some physical details still not as perfect as i expected. Check out the video specially after 1:28 You will realise something not “natural” in the water.

marclar

Because the balls or the “molecules” of water that is being simulated are quite big and since all these little balls have colision physx they’re too big to get trhough a crack. In order to be more realistic and going through small cracks and stuff those molecules need to be smaller but the thing is that currently tech can’t render real time that many balls in order to be that natural as you expect it to be. It would require enormous hardware to make it real (you’d have to shrink those balls into the dimensions of water molecules to be perfect but that would mean like bilion times more balls to fill a pool or something as you see.)

RAC

If i were you, I would just swim around.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1363021071 Calvin Garcia

only if they put
PhysX in games PhysX 2 games or 1 a year

sedjak6

I am not a gamer, but what first comes to mind is accurately modeling how the next Superstorm Sandy or hurricane will affect coastal cities during the storm surge. Or maybe when the next earthquake or meteorite tsunami hits the west coast. etc etc

Highlander

Nice, I can now play bf2 much smoother when swimming :)

martixy

“Our graphics capabilities have sort of plateaued as of late.”
They have plateaued because of industry economics, not lack of will or ability.
Games had to be made for the aging consoles, so they could sell, which is all of your plateau right there.

Aanyway, this does look amazing, as a demo, but I’m not seeing it in a game(its entertainment value) in at least a few years(4 being the optimistic guess).
On the professional side, there’s definitely things to be ironed out as far as accuracy of simulation.

For example – in the 3 columns section of the demo you can notice the “bounciness” of the water when coming down. Not sure if that’s just from the low simulation frequency or maybe the fact that it’s a compressible fluid simulation(incompressible is more expensive to simulate).

Eita

I wish some one could make a comparison video, Comparing PhysX to reality. That would be so cool…

Guest

Great. Unfortunately ATI’s got both of the latest consoles.

Munky

That poor bunny was scared stiff.

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